NiwEnglisc/Level I/Hu hattest þu?

 Lesson 1     ~   Hu hattest þu?

This lesson will deal with simple conversation topics such as greeting people, saying goodbye, and asking people how they are feeling, the alphabet, and nominative case pronouns and articles. This lesson also has soundbites so that you can learn how to pronounce everything, including the alphabet and some introductory verbs.

Hellos and Goodbyes in Englisc
You will need to know each expression with an asterisk (*) after it. The others, of course, would be useful to know if you are traveling to regions where they are used.

Formal and Informal Greetings in Englisc
Englisc speakers respect higher authority with their choice of certain phrases. The more formal phrases above are Goden Morgen, Goden Dæȝ, and Oþ lætter (as well as Grœt Godd). The least formal one is Wes haal. The others are neutral on the formal - informal scale.

Here are some examples:


 * Claudia: Goden Morgen, Herr Wagner!
 * Herr Wagner: Hallo, Claudia!


 * Birgit: Sei gesund, Susi!
 * Susi: Bis lætter, Birgit!

There is a small distinction in the words for women. A Hlafdiȝ is a married woman without children, while a Kwene has children. A Mæȝden is a young, unmarried woman, typically teenagers and early twenties, while Mæȝþ is for any woman over 21 who is not married. Some people use Frowe for all married women, and Frœwen for any unmarried woman, though Frowe is properly the generic for 'woman.'

The Englisc Alphabet
The 32 letters in both Englisc and English are shown above. One, the ligature ƕ (hwair), is used in case 'hw' shows up at the beginning of a word, and is mostly encountered in the written language as a shortcut to writing out the 'h' and the 'w'. Also, in words such as Hring and hlahhen, the 'hr' and 'hl' are often written together as well.

Another difference between Englisc and English is the Umlaut. The vowels a, o, and u can take an umlaut (in the form of æ, œ, and y). The Umlaut changes the sound of the vowel. For pronunciations of all the letters, go to the pronunciation guide. The umlauted 'u' is sometimes written with a single-dotted y, as in ẏ.

Notes:
 * In writing, the Umlaute are sometimes substituted with the vowel plus e, i.e ae, oe and ue.
 * In typing, the umlauted vowels are sometimes substituted with the German umlauted vowels ä, ö, and ü. However, if you have no way to type Umlaute you must use vowel-plus-e.


 * 1) Capital: A, Æ, B, C, D, Ð, E, F, G, Ȝ, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, Œ, P, Q, R, S, T, Þ, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
 * 2) Lowercase: a, æ, b, c, d, ð, e, f, g, ȝ, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, œ, p, q, r, s, t, þ, u, v, w, x, y, z

Bidde stæfræwe þu!
Look at this short phone conversation. Try to read it aloud. The translation of words and phrases is given below the text.

Vocabulary and Phrases (from above) 

Nominative Case
Cases describe what a noun or pronoun does in a sentence. When a noun or pronoun is the subject of a sentence, it is considered to be in the nominative case. For example, in the sentence "I ate an apple", I is the subject and the apple is the direct object. You will learn more about cases as the course continues.

There is no formal pronoun; in writing, you may write þu with a capital Þ to indicate politeness to the person being addressed.

Names

 * For more than one person, "Hu hatteþ..."

Note: There are possessive pronouns in Englisc, they just don't apply here. For instance, "Mein Name is..." would not be considered correct.

Verbs
You have already learned one verb: hæten, to be called. It is the only verb with a passive form, "hatte." The active form means "to command, order" as in "I had him get my drink" (Ic heht hin mein Gedrink getten).

Two more extremely common verbs are the Englisc translations for 'to be' and 'to have': wesen and haben. They are conjugated like this:

Hu gæþ't?
In Ordnung is also sometimes used for OK or Fine

Section Problems>>

Articles
Englisc, like many other languages, gives each noun a gender: Masculine, Feminine or Neuter. Plural is easy; the definite nominative Article is always þie. And as in English there is no indefinite article in plural. Nouns in plural form require different verb forms than nouns in singular.

In English, there are two different types of articles: definite (the) and indefinite (a and an). Englisc is the same, except that there are four different articles of each type. The nominitive case articles are as follows:

Definite Articles

 * Note that girl is neuter.

Indefinite Articles
Section Problems>>

Forming Questions
The basic word order in an Englisc sentence is the same as in English: Subject verb Objects. (SvO)


 * Þe Knafe pleȝþ Fotball.
 * The boy plays football.

This sentence is in the indicative mood, the mood that states a fact. The interrogative mood asks a question. To change the English sentence "The boy throws the ball" to the interrogative mood, we insert the helper verb "does" before "boy," ending with,"?". "Does the boy throw the ball?"

The process is very similar in Englisc. However, since Englisc verbs express both the simple and progressive aspects, we switch the whole verb with the subject, ending up with,


 * "Pleȝþ þer Knafe Fotball?"
 * Does the boy play football?

You have learned two questions so far: "Hu hatte...?" and "Hu gæþ't?". In Englisc, there are two basic ways of forming a question. The first is the method described above. In addition to this, you can use an interrogative adverb...

The question "Hu hatte...?", literally translated, means "How is ... called?", though the latter is a sentence no native-English speaker would ever say (the correct English equivalent of the Englisc being "What is ... called?"). That is why it does not contain Was ("Hwat hatte...?" means something like "What do you mean...?!"). These words come first in the sentence; the word order is: Interr. Adverb Verb Subject Object. For example:


 * Hwy pleȝþ þe Knafe Fotball?
 * Why does the boy play football?

You should note at this point that in Englisc, the verb always comes second in the sentence, except in the case of a question as described above. The subject is always next to the verb, if not in front of it then following it. For example:


 * Þe Knafe pleȝde am Monendæȝ Fotball.
 * The boy played football on Monday.


 * Am Monendæȝ pleȝde þe Knafe Fotball.
 * On Monday, the boy played football.

At this point, you should know the words for "yes", ȝa and "no", na respectively. There is also an emphatic "Yes!" called ȝese!

Section Problems>>

What's On the Test?
To go straight to the lesson test, go here.